What delightful plans for the future, what a charming existence of unbroken happiness one devises, when, in the arms of the object of one’s affection, one abandons oneself without reserve to all the illusions which embellish the imagination of two young lovers.
Adeline, sweet, sensitive, and loving, was certain that she would always be happy so long as her Edouard loved her, and that her Edouard would always love her; she had no doubt of it, nor had he. It is not when a man has experienced for the first time all the joys of love in the arms of his wife, that he thinks upon the possibility of changing. Then he is sincere, he really feels all that he says, and doubtless he would keep all his promises, if the same joys could always cause the same pleasures.
It seems, in those moments of expansiveness which follow the manifestations of love, that the husband and wife were really born for each other. They have the same tastes, the same thoughts, the same desires; what one does, the other approves; the husband was just about to propose what the young wife has planned, they mutually divine each other’s thoughts, and it seems to them perfectly natural that they should have but one mind and but one will. Blessed concord! you would bestow the most perfect happiness, if you might only last forever!
“And so, my dear love,” said Edouard, kissing his wife’s pretty little hands, “we will pass the winter in Paris, and four months of warm weather in the country.”
“Yes, my dear, that is agreed.”
“But shall I keep my place in the department? That would prevent me from leaving the city.”
“You must not keep it! What is the use? We have fifteen thousand francs a year; is that not enough to be happy?”
“Oh! it is more than we need.”
“Besides, your place would keep you away from me all day and I don’t want that!”
“Dear Adeline, but your mother—what will she say if I give up my place?”